Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!agate!sri-unix!maslak@decwrl.dec.com
From: sri-unix!maslak@decwrl.dec.com (Valerie Maslak)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Girls' schools (was Re: Women Wizards?)
Message-ID: <12783@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 28 Jul 88 23:01:28 GMT
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In respnse to Trish's note on Jamie's article...

The issue of whether or not there is a CS major may be secondary to
whether or not women are treated with respect for their intellectual
abilities and achievements. But then I was never very comfortable
with the idea of undergraduate school as vocational training
anyway...I guess I know too many people who are doing things they
never studied formally.

In my daughter's high school, private, all-girls, the science and
math classes are jammed. Most girls take the AP tests, most get 4 or
5 on them. My daughters KNOW that they are intellectually capable,
they KNOW how to speak out in class, talk to teachers, question,
learn.  It doesn't occur to them to hold back because the boys might
not like them to be too smart.

My older daughter is now at Berkeley, and doing well, in genetics.
She has  no math anxiety, feels as comfortable in a literature class
as a chemistry class. I honestly don't think she would have been
this free, this strong, without a solid experience of being
respected. And I'm not sure that most coed schools provide this.


If a young woman is self-confident and sure of her abilities to
begin with, it may not matter. But the single-sex model has a lot to
recommend it as an arena for growth.